The obvious solution: Don't get hit.

j/k, I think the dice idea is quite good, but you could also tke a regular sized sticky note and roll it in a circle (large enough to fit over a mast). It may look dumb, but like someone else said, you could cut them to make them look like flames, a nice game effect, if you ask me.

I've used the tiny dice for everything BUT rolling for damage and such. I'll put one on each ship's deckplate with the number of masts facing up. One gets shot off, I identify which one and turn the die to show the new number of masts. I think having a seperate die for each mast is a good idea as long as you have enough of the buggers. Also, in a couple of my early games, the other players and I decided that we could "buy" crew with no allegience and used the die with the point cost of the crew facing up to mark his existance and placement. I store my ships in the cards, so I have become pretty good at getting the masts out without damage anyway.